Aviva dumps DXC, shoves data centre support at Atos

UK insurance bods find new bit barn bouncer

Exclusive Atos is lined up to replace DXC Technologies as the sole supplier of data centre hosting services to insurance giant Aviva when the existing deal times out in some 19 months.

As El Regexclusively revealed in November, Aviva was one of a number of customers that had decided to look for alternatives rather than renew contracts with DXC. The others included Centrica and the UK government's Department of Work & Pensions.

The decade-long data centre services gig with Aviva was valued at $1bn when it was first signed by HP-owned EDS in June 2009. EDS then rebranded to HPE Enterprise Services and span into DXC in April 2017.

A spokesman for Aviva told The Register it had concluded the "competitive tendering process for data centre hosting support" that kicks in when the "existing UK arrangement with DXC comes to an end in June 2019".

"Atos will provide IT infrastructure services to host Aviva's business applications providing the latest technology to deliver services and protect our customers," the insurance PR man stated in a prepared remark.

The value of the five-year contract with Atos was not disclosed. The transition from DXC will start in 2018 and services be entirely migrated by July 2019.

When EDS won the insurer's bit-barn gig at the end of the noughties, some 300 Aviva staff were TUPED across, but insiders told us that fewer than 10 per cent of those people remained, managing two data centres in Norwich.

HPE ES intended to close the bit barns but Aviva disagreed with this and was a source of tension between supplier and customer, several people familiar with the matter told us.

The EDS-won contract involved running the two East Anglian data centres to serve Aviva's ops in the UK, Ireland, India and France, providing data centre modernisation services, and the management of mainframe, midrange and Windows servers.

Aviva, which has operations in 16 countries worldwide, has not yet responded to additional questions in which we asked why Atos won the deal; the scope of the newly penned agreement; the number of staff that TUPED to DXC; and what will happen to them.

New best pal Atos hasn't exactly got an unblemished record when it comes to efficient service delivery: it came under fire in 2016 when the UK government agreed to scrutinise its annual contracts worth £696m a year after the costs of a GP computer system project swelled.

French-based integrator Atos has not yet responded to a request for comment. ®